Disposing of owners choice

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Schnort

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 28, 2015
Messages
238
My i3 BEV owners choice is coming due in January/February, so I've been exploring options. Unsurprisingly, the balloon payment/residual is way more than the value of the car so buying it out isn't an option.

Here's what I've gathered:
- there are occasionally 'pull ahead' programs to get you out of your owners choice/lease up to 6 months early with no penalty assuming you lease/buy a new BMW. When this was written, there was no program available for this, but things change monthly.
- BMW financial services are only offering the option to buy out or return the car, or at least that's what the customer service adviser told me. They won't reduce the balance; they won't extend the period, etc. Buy the car or return it. After that, you can deal with the dealer and they may (apparently with monies/incentives from BMW USA) resell that car to you as a certified used at market rate. Maybe there's a chance to get a deal because you're not arguing over THEIR money, but BMWs money.

Oh yeah, dealers and their internet/truecar.com staff appear to idiots. I've inquired at several dealerships in the nearby cities and nobody will actually give me a quote on leasing a vehicle in inventory. They keep sending me a 'truecar' certificate for guaranteed discount on a car that is either the same advertised price on their website or worse. Then they keep telling me to call them to come in for a test drive and/or talk to their finance guy about "great interest rates available". Or just never respond.
 
The 'pull ahead' program are usually for popular models like 3, 5 series. When reading the fine print, X and i were not included.
 
my lease is ending in feb also

the dealers are strangely quiet on the pull ahead programs

my dealer was salivating all over my 2012 128i encouraging a 5 month pull ahead when its 3 year lease concluded


sad because i love the i3 and i dont want to go back to buying gas no matter how cheap it is

i wont lease another i3 unless they give me a great deal on a bev ... the rex is worthless for me

really hate dragging around 300 lbs of my bad choice

:roll:
 
Overall the car return process went reasonably smoothly.

They took my car, it ended up in their CPO inventory at an unreasonable price that went down over the next 5 months where the car finally sold (I think, anyways, it's not showing up on TRUECAR or their website and I finally got a notice from the bmw online that the car was removed from my app) for less than $18k, which is slightly more than what I expected it would sell for.

I ended up leasing a KIA Soul EV for $260 (including taxes, downpayment, etc), which is a nicer appointed car (leather seats, etc. for cheaper than anything else available to me) but it has the fatal flaw of a very high pitched squeal that's like having tinnitus every time you drive the car.
 
Thanks for the update Schnort! Were they particularly anal about anything in the process or taking your car back? Sounds like they didn't offer you any deals to keep it?
 
the original lease return person that worked for BMW measured the tires at the wrong place, so they insisted my tires needed replacing.

autovin did it right and said they didn't. I returned the car without doing anything to it, but did notify BMW ahead of time of my displeasure at possibly having to replace the tires at 15000 miles. BMW didn't ask for anything after the turn in, so I guess that was ok.

Overall, my car was pretty immaculate, though. No dings of any substance. no scratches, or stains on the interior or funky smells. 15K miles and they could basically put it on the lot as a CPO with no refurbishment.

They really didn't offer me anything, to be honest. Their best offer was essentially $2k above similar cars listed on truecar.com (nationwide)
 
Interesting quirk with owners chloice return... so I had bought my replacement car already and didn’t want to pay for extra insurance on a car I wasn’t using so I returned my owners choice car a month ahead of schedule. Expecting I’d have to pay the last payment and disposition fee which was reasonable in accordance to the contract.

However, after i returned the car, bmw fs sent me an all clear 0 dollar notice. When I looked into it further, it looked like they just closed to account and zeroed out everything. I called and ask bmw fs how will they charge me the fees and they said thay because the dealership decided to buy the car from bmw fs instead of shipping it back to bmw fs, they waivrd Everything and considered the contract closed and fulfilled.

I’m not gonna argue with that as it saved me a few hundred dollars, if you guys are on owners choice and are at the end and want to get out of the car sooner, it may make sense to return to the dealer in heart of a city (owners choice is only really avail in Texas and Illinois and there’s only a few in the heart of a major city). The dealer I returned to said they’re buying every i3 because they sell the on the used market like hot cakes. It’s the perfect urban car at the right price.

To be clear. This was not a pull ahead as I didn’t buy another car. I just did a return
 
I just got everything squared away turning mine in early. The dealership was a little confused since it was the first time they had an i3 Owner's Choice terminated early, but after getting that sorted out I ended up getting a bill from BMW FS that seemed to include only the principal portion of my remaining payments (your MyBMW account should have an estimated amortization schedule of interest vs principal portions of each payment).

The turn-in process seemed to be the same as a lease. I needed to get new tires since the Ecopia tires are trash (15k miles...) but other than that no issues.
 
I think the difference between yours and mine was the dealership I turned it into opted to buy the car from bmw fs instead of sending it back to bmw fs. I thought I was gonna get a bill as well but bmw fs didn’t send anything to me and when I called they told me everything was closed out because the dealership bought the car outright.

I got no paperwork from bmw at all. I had to call to find out why I didn’t get any paperwork
 
jhu321 said:
I think the difference between yours and mine was the dealership I turned it into opted to buy the car from bmw fs instead of sending it back to bmw fs. I thought I was gonna get a bill as well but bmw fs didn’t send anything to me and when I called they told me everything was closed out because the dealership bought the car outright.

I got no paperwork from bmw at all. I had to call to find out why I didn’t get any paperwork

Must be. I know mine is listed on my dealer's site now at about 5k less than my balloon payment would have been in a couple months, so I doubt they were dying to buy that one off me :p
 
I had the 30 month OC on a '14 BEV that ran out last Feb. My search for fair market value of my i3 for private trade (priced above wholesale, but below retail with extended warranty) put it almost $10K below the OC buyout residual. I called my salesperson and asked if they could negotiate a lower buyout price, and was told I had to talk to BMW corporate. I call BMW, and was told I had to talk to a BMW center (dealer).

I went in and talked to my dealer's general manager, telling him I would like to keep my i3, but was not willing to pay over fair market for it. I told him I specifically asked for him for help getting out of the sales/corporate/sales endless loop. He said he understood, and asked for a few minutes for him to do some research. About 20 minutes later he returned with a paper having a buyout offer from BMW USA with a price about $200 over what I figured was fair market, and I took the deal. I got nearly $5K off MSRP when I purchased, got $7500 back from Uncle Sam, and then got another nearly $10,000 off after the OC was up.

Even though I was buying the car I already had, they still required the lease/OC final inspection, and all was fine with the inspection (I had put on new tires already). A few months later, BWM sent me $300 as a milage credit for unused milage! I certainly was not expecting that, as they had the milage when they made me the buyout offer. :D
 
Bah hahaha brilliant. I also got caught in that dealer<-->corporate loop, glad you snuck out of it. Hopefully others can have success there too!
 
I know this is an old thread but I appreciate if you guys can answer. Do you know how soon you can dispose your vehicle in a Owner’s Choice? I am getting contradicting information from BMW NA, one say within the last month of due date, another say anytime within the last six months, the dealer says 120 days. I am confused. I know that I am responsible for the remaining payments.

Any help appreciated.
Thanks.
 
It's incredible the games these people play. Do they have a fulltime team of crooks at BMW Finance so they can sit there and change finance deals, rates, etc every freaking month for no apparent reason?

What a shady industry.

Schnort said:
My i3 BEV owners choice is coming due in January/February, so I've been exploring options. Unsurprisingly, the balloon payment/residual is way more than the value of the car so buying it out isn't an option.

Here's what I've gathered:
- there are occasionally 'pull ahead' programs to get you out of your owners choice/lease up to 6 months early with no penalty assuming you lease/buy a new BMW. When this was written, there was no program available for this, but things change monthly.
- BMW financial services are only offering the option to buy out or return the car, or at least that's what the customer service adviser told me. They won't reduce the balance; they won't extend the period, etc. Buy the car or return it. After that, you can deal with the dealer and they may (apparently with monies/incentives from BMW USA) resell that car to you as a certified used at market rate. Maybe there's a chance to get a deal because you're not arguing over THEIR money, but BMWs money.

Oh yeah, dealers and their internet/truecar.com staff appear to idiots. I've inquired at several dealerships in the nearby cities and nobody will actually give me a quote on leasing a vehicle in inventory. They keep sending me a 'truecar' certificate for guaranteed discount on a car that is either the same advertised price on their website or worse. Then they keep telling me to call them to come in for a test drive and/or talk to their finance guy about "great interest rates available". Or just never respond.
 
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